The present disclosure relates to wireless networking in a geographic area amongst a plurality of users, such as users at a public safety incident scene. Conventionally, public safety systems offer centralized services that reside at a central area and are available to public safety users in the field through a wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) serving a large geographic area such as a city or county. Public safety systems are evolving such that first responders are equipped with mobile devices, in the form of handsets, laptops, etc. that have the capability of wirelessly networking together in a high-speed wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) serving a much smaller geographic area, such as a city block. Exemplary services can include video services via a server, web services via a server, push-to-talk services, location services, etc. Mobile devices are moving to host client/server-based services in the WLAN for the needs of first responders. The benefits of hosting local services on the WLAN are reduced latency connections from those services hosted in the WLAN vs. the WWAN, reduced data traffic on the WWAN as the traffic now becomes local to the LAN, and the ability to operate without a connection to the WWAN, for some services. Local hosting of services includes one or more service instances being hosted on mobile devices in the WLAN associated with public safety responders.
During an incident, an incident manager or commander may direct a small group of responders at an incident scene such that the small group of responders is isolated from the rest of the group (WLAN). The small group loses RF coverage from the main incident scene, but the small group may still have WLAN RF coverage with each other (which generally lack an application/service instance). In such a scenario, a case can arise when none of the small group of responders has an instance of a particular application/service. If a service instance is not running on one of the mobile devices associated with the small group, the small group loses the capability(ies) provide by the service instance. Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for incident task based allocation of service instances for responders that may separate from the main incident scene (and lose RF coverage with the main incident scene), thereby allowing the small group to continue to communicate with each other.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.